Upsetting The Apple Cart

Even with an astonishing array of new surgical tools, the most essential one in healthcare is the jackhammer. Patients, doctors, health insurance CEO’s, hospital administrators–everybody agrees on the same three words: work in progress.

A quick exam of our latest white paper dramatizes the tension points and need for transformation. 70% of Americans have experienced higher healthcare costs in the past two years. And here's the unsettling domino effect: 31% say they spend less on clothes and food to pay for care.

However, the future offers dynamic new solutions and proves that healthcare is solving for more than just an apple a day. Passionate advocates are building the new healthcare from scratch, tabula rasa RX. There are innovative ideas, empowerment platforms, daring new technology and increasing social engagement. The unifying mission: put the patient back at the center of attention.

Here is a tour of the companies already making a profound improvement in the vital signs of healthcare.

First, the new blood. WellnessFX brings a DIY vision to laboratory tests. People order their own menu of tests and take a more deeply engaged and insightful role in their health. It’s a new financial model that makes blood work affordable.

Zoom+ disrupts the entire approach to care and health insurance with free circuit training, brain trainers, parenting classes and green juices. Zoom+ aims to “enhance human performance” and the digital user experience is as invigorating as a kale-mango smoothie.

Two new apps Pager and Heal give the old school doctor house-call some new tech talents. Think Uber-style interface, transparent fees and a doctor that comes straight to your door.

It’s also worth charting how precision medicine and big data will re-invent health from micro to macro, from DNA strand to global scale miracle. Yet we’re still in that waiting room, a few years from the real revolution.

Each of these specific initiatives and innovations are noteworthy. They’re tangible, activated and already creating a new patient-centric approach. High priority: tackling the elusive triple aim of cost, quality and access.

To get you started, here are three questions that keep us talking late into the night. (We encourage you to jump in with a perspective.)

1. What can healthcare learn from other industries?

2. How can we simplify the experience for patients?

3. How will technology help drive a new level of personalization?

Thoughts?

How will technology help drive the personalization of healthcare? #WEinsight